Browse Items (35 total)

The Coast Guard opened the SPARs (from the Coast Guard motto Semper Paratus, "Always Ready") to African-American women.

Uniform worn by Charity Adams Earley, the first African American officer in the Women's Army Auxillary Corps (WAAC), later Women's Army Corps (WAC) and Commander of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the first battalion of African…

During World War I, fourteen African American women served as yeomen (F) in the U.S. Navy as administrative and clerical workers.

The first Black Army nurse, Susie King Taylor served for the Union during the Civil War, tending to an all-Black Army regiment. Like many African American nurses during the war, Taylor was never compensated for her work. She worked as a laundress and…

Three years before Rosa Parks stood up to discrimination by sitting down on an Alabama bus in 1955, Women’s Army Corps (WAC) Private First Class Sarah Keys refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. Heading home to Washington, North…

Auxiliaries Ruth Wade and Lucille Mayo (left to right) further demonstrate their ability to service trucks as taught them during the processing period at Fort Des Moines and put into practice at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) recruiter 3rd Officer Fern McGee with unidentified WAAC enrollees, Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico.

Women’s Army Corps Lieutenant Dorothea Johnson gives oath of enlistment to Esther Aguilar and Virginia Herrera as WAF (Women in the Air Force) Sergeant Ruth Fikes looks on, Biggs Air Force Base, El Paso, Texas, 1951.
Ruth (Fikes) Fiorillo…

Lillian Smith (right) congratulating Mrs. Mabel Keaton Staupers (left), winner of the 36th Springarn medal for outstanding work in the integration of African American nurses into the American nursing profession, in Atlanta.

Born into a military family, Michelle Howard graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1982, where she was one of only seven African American women. During Operation Desert Storm (1990-1991), she served aboard the USS "Mount Hood" as chief…